Finding other ways

As a teenager Seamus Lynch was like many young people faced with the daunting prospect of making a decision about a career. "I felt under tremendous pressure because everyone else seemed to know what they wanted to do and I didn't," he says.

"For years I had told everyone I was going to be a dentist because I had a cousin in the profession and his lifestyle was appealing," he remembers. "I tried to make myself warm to the idea of dentistry but my heart wasn't in it. Then one day I was out walking and the notion of architecture struck me. I decided that was a much better option because I enjoyed drawing and designing and I assumed, wrongly, at the time that it would be a very creative career."

Lynch, who comes from Dungarvan, Co Waterford, and is one a family of eight, studied architecture at UCD and graduated in 1974 with an honours degree. "I found architecture tough enough at the beginning but I settled down eventually and got to grips with the course and ended up doing quite well."

His first job was in Derry working on the site of a new hotel. "The first two years of my working life were very active and `hands on' - I was very happy. When that project was over I moved back into the office and it was at this point that reality struck.

"I realised that a lot of my job would involve ploughing through the endless bureaucracy associated with the administrative side of architecture such as getting planning permissions and the mundanity of it so overwhelmed me that I basically packed up my tent and ran."

Although disillusioned about architecture, Lynch was not able to give up the profession until the early Nineties when he went full-time into a career in alternative health. Instead, he used his architectural skills on a freelance basis to earn money while he explored other career avenues.

"I had been very involved in amateur drama while I was working in Derry and I felt very drawn to acting as a potential career," he says. "Having left the architectural practice in Derry I came back to Dublin and decided to give it a go. I signed up for acting classes in the Focus Theatre and subsequently ended up joining the company there and staying involved with acting as an actor and director from about 1977 until 1984."

All through this time he kept architecture going on a freelance basis. "Having made `a mistake' with one career, I wasn't going to give it up until I was absolutely sure about the second. I used to work in the theatre by day and draw plans at night or vice versa until things finally reached a point where I had to make a decision about my future.

"I found the theatre exciting and I found many of the aspects of the life appealing. But, deep down, there was this niggling feeling that this wasn't going to satisfy me fully either. As an actor you have very little control over your life. You have to get involved in productions that don't really appeal to you because you need the work and you have to give one hundred per cent on the stage every time regardless of the quality of the production.

"So, in 1983, having proved that I could give a good account of myself as an actor, I gave up the theatre completely with no misgivings."

Still searching for the right niche, Lynch moved to London in 1984 and went back into architecture full-time. "I felt I had to get out of Ireland to `find' myself," he says. "I worked in various areas of architecture in London, mainly on a freelance basis, and I got on all right. I made a living but I couldn't say I was happy or fulfilled. I think if you're in the wrong career it can be very draining because you lose sight of who you are and your self-esteem plummets as a result."

While working in London Lynch decided to follow up on another of his long-time interests, dance. "I started taking dance lessons when I was far too old to ever do anything with it as a career, but I had an ambition to take it a bit further and in 1985 I went to New York, the dance capital of the world, and spent six months in a studio," he says.

"I thoroughly enjoyed the experience but I knew I was going nowhere with it so I gave it up and came back to London. I was 35 years of age and I was at a crossroads in my life.

"On the one hand I thought I should knuckle down and make myself be an architect but deep down I knew that wasn't the solution. The only problem was I didn't know what was."

Lynch became interested in meditation and Yoga and he says that one of the most significant events during this period of soul-searching was reading Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda.

"This book gave me the greatest insight into the nature of being that I had ever come across and it helped me find a meaning for my life that satisfied me. I also became ill around this time and, having looked at what conventional medicine was offering me (life long injections to deal with pernicious anaemia), I began investigating alternative therapies and was treated with homeopathy and acupuncture.

He found the acupuncture treatment "particularly significant" and was very taken with the subtle way it works in conjunction with the body's intrinsic healing abilities to create wellness.

"Some time later I was chatting with someone who was asking me what I was going to do and I heard myself saying that I was going to study acupuncture. I still don't know why I said this out of the blue but evidently my unconscious had been mulling it over and it just came out.

"As soon as I'd said it I felt a great sense of peace within myself and four months later I began studying acupuncture part-time. Then to complicate things I was let go from the job I was working on and I had to sell my house in Dublin to pay my fees."

In 1993, Lynch came back to Ireland and set up his own acupuncture practice - he now also teaches Yoga and Indian head massage.

The fourth string to his bow is zero balancing which he also studied in London. Developed in California by a doctor who was also an osteopath and acupuncturist, zero balancing uses gentle pressure to correct problems with the skeletal structure and to bring the body back into a more conventional alignment.

Lynch says that he is now totally happy and fulfilled in his new career. "I have no inner conflicts about what I should be doing any more," he says. "I always wanted to do something worthwhile with my life and I found I couldn't achieve this as an architect.

"Money has never been a motivator for me which is just as well as there have been lean times while I worked everything through. But I find what I do now very satisfying and creative in its own way and, if I can make life better for the people I treat, then I'm really pleased."

Contact: Seamus Lynch runs regular weekend workshops in Indian Head Massage. No previous experience is necessary and he can be contacted at (01) 284 6073.